Blonde Ambition: Tinsley Mortimer

Socialite Tinsley Mortimer opens the doors to her chic abode

If you are going to discuss Tinsley Mortimer, there is no better place to begin than with the curl. "The curl" refers to the perfectly coiffed, Malibu Barbie-cum-Veronica Lake–like wave of golden tresses that has, in recent years, become her trademark. In fact, many would say the curl was the turning point for Tinsley—the moment, traceable to early summer 2004, when the Virginia-born, Columbia University–educated, New York–based girl about town transformed herself into megasocialite Tinsley Mortimer, famous (a word not used lightly) from Manhattan to Tokyo, where she now has a line of handbags and ready-to-wear clothing.

The evening was June 10. The event: a party thrown by Rena Sindi to launch a Dior fragrance called Pure Poison. (Incidentally, Tinsley is now the brand's beauty ambassador.) The place: Kittichai, the Thai restaurant in the lobby of SoHo's 60 Thompson hotel. There was a face painter and a snake charmer, along with guests including actress Eva Mendes and socials Jennifer Creel and Eva Jeanbart-Lorenzotti. History was happening right before their eyes.

"That was the night of the first curl," says the always genial Tinsley, 32. She is sipping an oversweetened (five Equal packets) iced coffee one Friday afternoon in the Upper East Side apartment she shares with her husband, Topper. The great-grandson of a former president of Standard Oil and a descendant of the first chief justice, John Jay, Topper, 31, works at Guggenheim Partners, an investment firm in New York. As for Tinsley's lineage, her mother's side is descended from Thomas Jefferson, and her father is related to Patrick Henry and James Madison, though she is "not sure how many greats" it would take to align them. The pair met at Lawrenceville, a boarding school in New Jersey. "I would go over to get juice [in his dining hall], hoping I would bump into him," says Tinsley of the beginnings of their flirtation.

Topper, however, isn't much for the social swirl—he tends to stand in the background or stay at home—and he recently groused to The New York Times about the charity circuit that his wife prominently inhabits. "That's Topper, and he's never been shy about expressing his feelings about the stuff that goes on in New York," explains Tinsley. "Sometimes he forgets when he's referring to 'these girls,' he's referring to me, too." Indeed, any inroads and accomplishments of Tinsley's are all her own. And those blonde ringlets certainly distinguish her from your average Tory-Burch-flat-wearing socialite. "She's got a real savvy and sophistication about how she presents herself, and I'll say that she nailed it," says über–fashion publicist Bonnie Morrison, a friend of Tinsley's. "I didn't even realize she had this iconic look until her handbag launch, where all these models were hired to dress like her: the Mary Janes, the pinafores, the hair curled. It was an amazing moment."

As with any established style setter, Tinsley is comfortable enough to vary her signature hairstyle. (Note the sleek, pin-straight look she's sporting in these pictures.) But she's the first to admit that sometimes she overdoes the "girly thing." She's not one for jeans or, as she describes it, "effortless chic." She loves to wear colorful dresses that make her feel pretty—Oscar de la Renta, Zac Posen, Carolina Herrera. "Pouffy" is always a plus.

"It may not be of the moment, but I really stick to my specific style," she says. "I like to feel confident, and I never wear anything that doesn't feel like me."

"Tinsley has always had an eye for design," adds pal and fashion designer Peter Som.

Naturally, her entire gestalt is what the Japanese label Samantha Thavasa zoomed in on when it was looking for a New York girl to be a face of its accessories line, next to Victoria Beckham, Penélope Cruz, the Hilton sisters, and Beyoncé Knowles. "I'm very offended that you don't see the similarities between me and Beyoncé," Tinsley teases with her customary self-effacing humor.

Refreshingly, she couldn't be less embarrassed about her sometimes-plebeian tastes. "There's no subterfuge," explains Morrison. "She really is who she is."

Tinsley, after all, has a portrait of Juliet Lee, a descendant of Robert E. Lee, hanging in the living room, and the dining-room table is set with blue-and-white William Yeoward china complemented by napkins embroidered with her and her husband's initials ("We're both TM!" she squeals), but she would happily order Domino's pizza every night if she didn't have to keep squeezing into those de la Renta gowns.

Other girls might have scoffed at the chance to be, like David Hasselhoff, big in Japan, but it is no doubt Tinsley's down-to-earth sense of life's absurdity that has made her open to the opportunity. Tobias Buschmann, director of operations for Samantha Thavasa as well as for Riccimie, the clothing line for which Tinsley now designs a capsule collection, explains why the Japanese in particular clamor for her: "She is like a princess." Or, perhaps, an anime character come to life.

Actually, Tinsley grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of a businessman and an interior designer who have since divorced. In fact, her mother played a big part in decorating Tinsley's new apartment. (Coincidentally, Topper's mother, Senga, is an editor at House Beautiful.)

After boarding school, Tinsley had a brief stint at the University of North Carolina before transferring to Columbia. Topper then transferred to NYU from Northeastern in Boston to be closer to his future wife. (The two married at 18 in Florida, but the union was later annulled; they remarried in 2002 in Richmond.) Tinsley chalks up her success in New York partly to luck, partly to the rapidity with which images are now disseminated around the world. "When I first started out working these parties, there might have been a camera here or there," she recalls. "But now, with the Internet, your picture is up and they're seeing you in Japan and Germany. That's what happened, and that's why I became more visible. Nothing I did was calculated. I wasn't going to a charity event in order to get a picture, in order to get into a magazine."

Even her closest friends, however, would never call her naive. "I'm a firm believer in if you want something and you set your mind to it, you can achieve it," says social cohort Fabiola Beracasa. "Tinsley gets ahead in part because I'm sure she wants to. It doesn't hurt that she's very personable and warm and charismatic."

Still, ambitions aside, Tinsley isn't really clear about her end goals: "Maybe I just want to do this little gig for as long as my contract lasts and then just step back and be with my dogs and my husband and watch Family Guy.

But part of me knows I've always needed something big," she says, cuddling her two Chihuahuas, Bebe and Bella. She calls them her babies and readily admits she and Topper are not ready for the real kind.

Of course, her many commitments have made moving into her new apartment tricky. Husband and wife have been renovating the two-bedroom pad for some time. The place is nearly finished, and it has all the trappings of social affluence: bergère chairs, silver de Gournay wallpaper, imposing couches. "I wouldn't be comfortable if I had pillows that you could actually lie on," Tinsley says. "I like pretty things around. I like it to be prissed up. Then I feel at least something is sane in my life."